“As usual, he waits until the hard stuff is over to show up,” I teased. “Probably had to get his hair done.”

Bennett McCormick was the brother who cared most about appearances – specifically, his appearance. He always took care to make sure he looked his best, right down to his freshly shaven babyface and meticulously trimmed hair.

“Business isn't all about what goes on behind the grill, boys” he said. “Someone has to make sure the bills get paid.”

And that was Bennett. Cason was the chef, Bennett was the numbers guy. I still wasn't sure where I fit in, but I helped where needed. Sometimes marketing and advertising, other times alongside Cason on the grill. I was the more jack-of-all trades type.

“And those bills just had to be paid this morning, huh?” Cason teased, wiping sweat from his forehead with his t-shirt, which was covered in charcoal and dust.

Ben shook his head, an almost condescending look on his face – an expression that never failed to make me want to smack him right in the mouth.

“Not like you'll understand it,” he said, his tone matching his smug expression, “but I was meeting with the banker this morning to discuss our expansion.”

“Explains the suit,” I said.

“And the haircut,” Cason added. “But still not why it had to be done this morning when we could have used another set of hands to put this all together.”

“Hey now, I'm not the one sleeping with my ex still,” Ben said, turning the attention back on me.

I shrugged. “At least I'm getting laid these days. One of us has to keep the genes alive.”

“And besides,” Carson said, “Quinn got up and busted his ass this morning.”

While I gave them shit right back, the mention of Shelly reminded me of what happened the night before. For the first time since we started hooking up, starting way back in high school, I knew it was the end. Hell, we hadn't even slept together last night. At least not in the sexual sense. We shared a bed one last time before she left for the bright lights of the big city.

And this morning, when I asked her again ifshe was sure she wanted to end this, she made it perfectly clear that we were over.

She also called me a selfish prick in the process.

And while her words stung, being outside with my brothers made me almost forget about her and that whole scene entirely. Almost. I tried to remind myself that it wasn't like we were ever going to settle down and get married or some shit like that. I knew it, she knew it. But, most of the time, I liked spending time with her. My brothers didn't like Shelly for a lot of reasons. And while it was hard for me to fully understand why they hated her so much, deep down, I knew they were right in some of the things they'd said. I was too close to the situation, obviously, and didn't see some of what they saw.

Both Cason and Ben still enjoyed playing the field a bit, and since I was officially free from Shelly, I thought that maybe I'd join them. It'd be like old times – the McCormick brothers back out on the prowl together.

Except for the fact that we knew most of the women in Black Oak – and very few of them seemed enticing. Everyone knew everyone else, and at times, the whole town felt almost incestuous. A lot of people were distantly related to others by marriage. Not to mention the fact that, in a graduating class of sixty-five students that you pretty much grew up with from day one, many of them felt like family.

If the brothers McCormick were going to go out and conquer women together, we were going to need to find a new fishing hole to dip our poles into.

CHAPTER FOUR - BENNETT

My brothers just don't understand what it actually takes to run a business. To them, it's all about grilling up the food and serving it. And yeah, that's a big part of it. But there's so much that goes on behind the scenes – payroll, the bills that have to be paid to keep us afloat, licenses, and all. There's a million things I do that they don't see, that if I didn't do them, the Driftwood would have closed down long ago.

But, I think that's what makes us strong; we all have our defined roles within the business.

Cason is the grill master. He's the one old man Dierks passed the recipe down to, and it was his idea to buy the Driftwood in the first place. I'm the brains behind the operation – I keep the books and do most of the advertising. I'm the face of the Driftwood. And Quinn is kind of our Jack-of-all-trades. He does a little bit of everything, helping out here and there.

“Hey, pretty boy,” Quinn said. “Can you make yourself useful and grab those boxes out of the truck?”

I look down at my slacks and shirt. The last thing I want is to get myself dirty. Cason and Quinn might not care if they were filthy and grimy, but I sure as hell did.

It's always been that way though. Cason has always been pretty tidy, but not anywhere near as fastidious as I was. And Quinn has more or less always been a slob. I loved my brothers, but it's one of the things that's always driven me the craziest about them – especially given that we share a house.

“Come on, bro,” Cason called from the back of the truck. “You've been playing businessman while we've been busting our asses out here all morning.”

I sigh and unbutton my shirt. Taking it off, I laid it neatly on the passenger seat in my truck. Stripping out of my slacks, I laid them over the shirt. People were milling about, getting their booths set up and ready for the bonfire, but I was still in a t-shirt and

my boxers, so I didn't care. I grew up playing sports and spent my fair share of time in the locker room, so my sense of modesty isn't all that high.

Grabbing my gym bag off the floor of the cab, I threw on my shorts and changed out my shoes. If I'm going to be getting sweaty and dirty doing manual labor in that heat, I sure as hell wasn't going to do it in my nice clothes. My brothers may be the kind of animals who are going to wear the same clothes they're in now to the bonfire, but I'm not.

Tags: Rye Hart Erotic
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